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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27984282">Cursed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCarmineWanker/pseuds/TheCarmineWanker'>TheCarmineWanker</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Winx Club</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:21:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>723</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27984282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCarmineWanker/pseuds/TheCarmineWanker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Love was meant to be magical but this was a curse</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Oritel/Stella (Winx Club)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cursed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>    He blames it on the witches and the almost 20 years he spent preserved in rock, as he tells himself how there is no way that, under normal circumstances, he could have ever found himself in this position. Having just been brought back alongside his wife and his kingdom, he’s only starting to reunite with his wife, get to know his daughter, and rebuild his kingdom, so, why, then, is he being plagued by irrational thoughts that keep him up at night and hinder his ability to enjoy the very things he spent the past two decades dreaming about? It certainly hadn’t been his choice to become infatuated with his daughter’s best friend and, with all of the misery it causes him, he often wonders if it isn’t really a curse that was cast on him by the witches or Valtor.</p>
<p>    He sees her silky skin and cherry blossom lips every time he closes his eyes and her dazzling smile haunts his dreams. It’s bad enough that he can’t escape the intrusive thoughts that plague him but what’s worse is the effect they have on him. With the significant guilt this makes him feel piled on top of the immense stress he’s under, between rebuilding an entire kingdom and trying to form a relationship with his now-adult daughter plus the stress caused by grappling with the feelings he has for her friend, he ends up lashing out at his family and others around him. As such, without him ever acting on these thoughts, it seemed that they would stand in the way of his happiness and cause a rift in his family anyway.</p>
<p>    One part of it that he finds particularly difficult is how much time he ends up having to spend around her. Bloom has a healthy social life, which is good and something he tries his best to encourage, but that also means that her friends come over quite a bit, including Stella. Every time he ends up having to talk to her, it’s an ordeal, between all the guilt he feels combined with the unfortunate attraction and then, to top it all off, a healthy amount of sheer paranoia that he’s acting even the slightest bit different or odd around her and someone will notice. Each exchange he has with her, no matter how short, leaves him convinced that he had done something weird, that someone noticed, and that, now, somehow, that person knows what he feels for her. He will then spend the rest of the day walking on eggshells, waiting for his wife to serve him divorce papers and for his daughter to cut him out of her life. That never happens, of course, but that fact does nothing to stop him from catastrophizing every single time he so much as happens to be in the same room as her.</p>
<p>    Bloom and Marion have noticed that something’s wrong, though they don’t know what, and have tried to ask about it multiple times but only succeeded in further increasing his anxiety while learning nothing. That is probably the worst part - the way he can’t tell anyone about it, especially Marion, whom he always shared everything with. Not only was this curse distancing him from his family, it had also cost him his best friend and confidant. No matter how many times she reminds him that he can tell her anything, he doesn’t listen because he knows that he can’t - not with this.</p>
<p>    To some degree, he also thinks he’s overreacting, that this is just some silly infatuation that is clearly beyond his control and, surely, his wife will understand if he tells her. It is in these moments, when he thinks such things, that he blames all of this on himself as though none of it would be happening if he just wasn’t so <i>weak</i>. This, of course, only adds fuel to the fire and makes it all that much worse.</p>
<p>    At the end of the day, there is no path of recourse for him. It would only make things worse for him if she returned his feelings, even if every cell in his body was screaming to be with her. All he can do is wait, practice his acting skills, and hope that he’ll get better soon and that, in the meantime, this curse won’t drive him insane.</p>
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